Microsoft has been gradually reshuffling its executive team in recent months, following the departure of Steve Ballmer, and the beginning of Satya Nadella’s tenure as the company’s CEO. Some of the big changes include Scott Guthrie’s appointment as Executive Vice President for the Cloud and Enterprise Group, and the return of Stephen Elop to Microsoft, where he is now in charge of its Devices Group.

Bloomberg reports that the latest executive to be reassigned is Jeff Teper who, until recently was the Corporate Vice President for the Office Service and Servers Group. Company spokesperson Peter Wootton confirmed that Teper has been promoted to take charge of Microsoft’s corporate strategy, with a broad remit that will include business areas such as company acquisitions and development.

Teper is sometimes referred to as the ‘father of SharePoint’, as he was one of the foundations ‘knowledge management’ team that later went on to develop and create Microsoft’s business collaboration platform.

In an interview with GeekWire in 2011, he identified cloud computing as the most important technology of the year, perhaps a prescient statement, given the ‘cloud first, mobile first’ focus that Satya Nadella has established for Microsoft. It’s perhaps no great coincidence that the two share a similar vision, though, given that Teper was part of the team that hired Nadella to work at Microsoft in the first place.

Nadella said last week that he is "still defining and tuning" Microsoft's long-term strategy, and Teper's appointment will no doubt be instrumental in helping to establish the company's vision and direction for the next decade and beyond.